On the road from Kimberley to Free State; Google Maps Street View
Izzy checked the address – such an English-looking cottage, with rambling roses over the porch; she knocked on the door.
“Aunt Bessy?” Her voice trembled, shocked to see a woman whose iron-grey hair was crisp as a person of colour. Yet none could deny her whiteness. “I’m Isabel. Jimmy’s daughter.”
“Jimmy…” the woman repeated. “South African Jimmy?”
Izzy nodded.
“Then best you come in. Is it a visit, or… a stay?”
“A visit. I wanted to meet Uncle Daniel before I settle in Southhampton.”
“I know you wrote that Jimmy’s dead but… is that a reason to leave? He married three times, has a score and a half of children. They can’t all be dead.”
“Fifteen. And they’re dead to me, taken from us in ’48. Sent to live in Orange Free State, across the border from Kimberley. You and Uncle Daniel are the only family I have now.”
148 words written for What Pegman Saw: Free State, South Africa
Based on the true events of a visit in 1966 (names changed). Isabel’s mother had been white, but Jimmy’s second and third wives were women of colour, and yet the women had been sisters. Isabel settled in Southampton with her English husband.
crispina kemp 